Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old boy, had been accused of possessing a firearm and running away from the police.
Ever since then, Chicago has had an uprising of protests to gain justice for the boy.
The mayor of Chicago responds with an issue for emotional appeal for calm, and video footage from the police’s body cam is released today. She tells the public, “We must proceed with deep empathy and calm and importantly, peace,” also noting that watching the video out of many was an “excruciating” experience.
She continues and says that “no family should ever have a video broadcast widely of their child’s last moments, much less be placed in the terrible situation of losing their child in the first place,”
The police who shot Toledo had been accused of shooting him over racial tensions, and the video is released in the moments of Derek Chauvin’s trial of misconduct with the murder of George Floyd.point 464 |
Alongside this incident, recently, Kimberly Potter was also charged for the death of Daunte Wright for mistaking her gun for her taser, shooting him to his death.point 136 | 1
In Chicago, Adam Toledo had been shot by the police in Little Village, which is a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Chicago’s West Side. Law enforcement authorities claimed that Adam had a gun in his hand, ignoring an officer’s command to stop and drop the weapon.
In the video, it is shown that Toledo raises his hands up once the officer stops him, and is searched for the weapon in which, the police finds nothing.
There is no evidence that Adam Toledo shot at the police either, and the mayor watched the video in a slowed down version. With the approval of the family, the footage was released today in an edited version since the raw version is too painful to watch and difficult to follow.
The mayor acknowledges that there has been a higher rate of crimes happening around the state, causing “fear and pain” in the city with the history of police misconduct. She states that “transparency and speed are crucial,” since the investigation is still undergoing.
At the time of the shooting, the mother thought that Adam had been in his room his whole time.
In the video, the officer shouts, “Show me your f***ing hands!” The boy turns around, putting his hands up, and the officer shoots at him.point 308 |
The city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability released seventeen body camera videos, four third party videos, a transmission from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, two audio recordings of 911 calls, six Shot Spotter recordings, and so on to show transparency not only to the family, but to the public.point 284 | 1
Adam attended Gary Elementary School, gaining the support from his teachers and classmates. The family wanted to “correct the hurtful and false mischaracterization of Adam as a lonely child of the street who had no one to turn to,”
His family says that “Adam was not alone.”